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Order Size Optimization – Can You Get a Little More Cha-ching?

Back when this eBiz writer slaved in retail at a big box electronics store, employees in the departments that sold music and video games were required to carry around accessories like CD cases to upsell shoppers. Why? Video games and CDs have low margins, but the accessories are marked up much higher. Getting the customer to buy the extras adds value to a purchase that is, in many cases, a low or no value sale. At restaurants, the wait staff always tries to entice a dessert order. At fancy boutiques, clerks suggest complementary items for an outfit. At the eye doctor, the optician’s assistant tries to upsell patients on various finishes for lenses. You get the point.

In e-commerce, there aren’t clerks or physical check-outs stocked with quick grab items like magazines, hand sanitizer, candy, gum, batteries, gift cards and other impulse buys to add to the cart while waiting in line. So how does one increase the average order size in e-commerce?

There are various features and business practices that, when implemented on an online retail store, will result in customers adding more items to the cart. Here are some ways to get your customers to buy more.

Item Page Multiple Add-to-Cart

It’s common practice to offer cross-sell and up-sell items on an item page to promote products that either go along with the main item (cross-sell), or more expensive models that can be sold instead of the main item (up-sell). The cross-sell is a great asset to an item page; however, you can take the idea a step further. Rather than have users navigate away from the item page to the item pages of the cross-sell items, a multiple add-to-cart feature allows customers to add the main item and all required/desired accessories to the cart with one click. A multiple add-to-cart feature makes it easy to purchase more at once.

For example, you sell paintball guns. But you don’t want someone to walk away with just the paintball gun, right? You can merchandise your item page by giving customers the option to buy the CO2 tank, paintballs, safety mask, gloves and camo pants all at once. Congrats. You just sold more!

Mini Cart

On a traditional Yahoo! store, when a customer adds an item to the cart, the customer is also taken directly to the checkout process. With a mini cart feature, also referred to as a floating or perpetual cart, the item is added to the cart and the customer stays right on the item page – in buying mode. The contents of the cart and order total are displayed in the header. Allowing users to always see their current purchase total eliminates any sticker shock at the end, and in the meantime, it keeps users out of the checkout lane, which means they continue to browse.

Snap Shop

The “quick shopping” feature is becoming a trend for all the big retailers. In 2007, Solid Cactus innovated the feature for Yahoo! stores. This features allows users to shop right from a store’s section pages, without having to click to an item page, then back to a section page and back to another item page. Because shopping this way is both easy and fun, customers buy more. Snap Shop can work in sync with the Mini Cart feature, and this really maximizes the user experience, totally keeping them shopping by reducing the number of clicks between the customer and the checkout.

Quantity Discounts & Quantity Pricing Table

If you sell a product where people may need multiple quantities, or products they may need replaced or refilled down the line, an effective way to increase average order size is to get people to buy more of that item. This type of practice is common for party favors, promotional items and other merchandise that is usually bought in larger quantities, but other industries could do the same. Rather than buy one item for $10, perhaps you can offer three at $7 each. If people can save a little more now, offer a better price point for buying more. The result is a higher sale– and you move more product. For this to be a successful way to increase order size, the discounts need to be clear and easy to understand. Yahoo! comes standard with a quantity pricing feature, however by default its display leaves a lot to be desired. Solid Cactus offers a visually appealing Quantity Pricing Table which clearly displays discounts.

Free Shipping on Certain Dollar Amount

Another popular way to entice customers to add more to their shopping carts is a free shipping offer at a set dollar amount. Setting a threshold just slightly over your current average order size will help push people over that limit, thus increasing the size of orders. For example, if you see that most orders are coming in at around $40-ish, set the free shipping at $50.

Zvi Dubin, Co-Owner and CTO in
charge of marketing, development and JewelBasket.com’s web presence, said that when he implemented free shipping along with Yahoo!’s Cross Sell, average order size soared.

“Average order value varies by season and economic conditions, and we are also interested in revenue growth. At the time we implemented the free shipping count-down and Yahoo! cross sells in 2007, the combination increased sales approximately 10 to 15-percent,” said Dubin.

Free Shipping Countdown

This feature goes with the previous suggestion. Setting a free shipping threshold is a no-brainer, however, some customers may need to be reminded of this. Incorporate a free shipping countdown feature into the shopping cart (or within the Mini Cart if you are using that) to do the math for customers and to tell them exactly how much more they need to add to the cart to qualify for free shipping. This is an extra (psychological) reminder at the end of the shopping experience to maybe buy just one more item.

Free Gift with Purchase

Everyone likes free stuff! Department store make-up counters are well-known for this tactic. Customers who buy over a certain dollar amount get something free– like more make-up, a bag, a purse or perfume. Advertise that any customer who buys a certain product or a certain dollar amount gets a free gift along with his/her purchase. This builds value and entices shoppers to make a higher value purchase to get the free gift.

Discount on Certain Dollar Amount

Coupon codes are another way to entice people to buy more. Offer a coupon code to take a percentage off orders of a certain dollar amount.

Display of Promos with Flash Sequence Banner

Promotions such as free shipping on a certain dollar amount, free gift with purchase, or percentage off a certain dollar amount with use of coupon code, can all increase average order size, but how can you make these promos evident without cluttering your header or homepage? Promotional messages can be tastefully displayed within a site’s header, and it’s common practice to use that area for a feature such as free shipping. If you have multiple promotions, using a flash sequence banner can relay multiple messages without taking up lots of real estate.

By increasing average order size, you grow your business. People are buying, but you can persuade them to buy more. Take a step back and analyze your current average order size. Is it where you want it to be? If not, where would you like it to be? Read over this list again and determine what strategies you can implement to your own e-commerce business to earn a little more cha-ching.

ElementzNutrition.com Co-founder Makes Social Media History; Increases Followers 20x

In days of old, it took the Pony Express days or weeks to deliver a message, but today news travels fast. Sometimes so fast, the big news bypasses traditional media. Thanks to the immediacy of Internet-enabled camera phones, Solid Cactus client Janis Krums garnered national attention at exactly 3:36 p.m. ET on Thursday, January 15, 2009.

Krums, co-founder of ElementzNutrition.com was on a commuter ferry in the Hudson river when it was diverted to rescue passengers of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 after it made an emergency landing in the New York river.

Being the connected man he is, Krums took a picture and uploaded it to Twitter using TwitPic.com, where he also updated his status, letting his then 180 followers know that he was en route to pick up the survivors.

“Basically, it was an incredible sight. I definitely thought I should take a picture, and I happened to be on Twitter when I saw it, so that was quickest place to post,” said Krums.

When the ferry reached the plane Krums let a few of the passengers borrow his phone to call loved ones. When he was handed back his phone, he was amazed at the number of messages and Twitter followers he had gained. His photo became the first to circulate as part of an international news frenzy branded “Miracle on the Hudson.” His phone then started to ring.

Interviewed on many major news outlets for his citizen journalism experience, Janis Krums discovered the huge power of social media.

Regarding the calls from MSNBC, the BBC, and ABC News, he said, “I was very surprised and overwhelmed. When I got the phone back I had messages and calls… right away. [The media] had my number. My phone didn’t stop making noises for five hours.”

Krums had a Twitter account for 8 months, but really became active during the last 3.

“I was slowly building a following. It was mainly an experiment to see how you could use Twitter to promote a business or a brand,” he said. “I would post links to health-related articles since that’s our industry, or links to technology or social media articles. Basically anything that was cool to read.”

After his now historic Tweet, Krums jumped from 180 followers to 3500. He had planned to utilize social networking for his new website, however the plane incident reinforced that decision.

“I was going to use [social media marketing] tactics anyway. This reinforces the point, especially now that my network is so big – the reach now is incredible. No questions asked, I’ll definitely use it now,” he said.

“Nowadays you need to have any medium you can for business. You never know what is going to catch fire. Some people may look at Facebook and not Twitter…you need to have all angles covered. Everything is evolving so quickly. If you can be on the front of new technology, it’ll help business,” he said.

While this example is more on the citizen journalism side, it paints a huge example of how a fad, a product, or new site can spread fast. For that reason, social media has become a booming way to promote e-commerce. Krums says that he’s a member of several social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and a blog, but admits he doesn’t update them all the time.

“I’m getting better at updating and might use a service that does all the sites from one interface. I didn’t have as much of a use for it a week ago and hadn’t explored it, but it’s time now,” he said.

His site, ElementzNutrition.com features performance nutrition for elite athletes and is scheduled to launch this spring. You can bet he’ll post that throughout the Social Media universe!

New Year, New Look: Is it Time for a Redesign?

People seem to get a little more dressed up for New Year’s Eve bashes, more so than they would for an ordinary night out. The idea is to shine and dazzle a little more. That mentality continues as the new year starts. People want to improve upon their own appearance with a new hairdo, a new wardrobe, a new waistline, whiter teeth. Sure, we think about these things year-round, but there’s something about a glowing, dropping ball that brings a personal makeover to the top of the to-do list.

It’s the same experience in e-commerce. E-tailers start to think, “Hmmm. What can I do to make my site dazzle more this year? How can it really shine?” For that reason, every year around this time, those in the e-commerce industry begin to be hit with newsletters, articles and seminars about how to prepare for the new year, namely about getting a redesign. The holiday push is over, a new sales year is beginning and in general, the focus is on a new beginning.

Remember that a redesign isn’t only about aesthetics. Sometimes putting a band-aid here and adding a feature there can actually clutter your site’s programming. A complete redesign may be needed to give your e-commerce site a facelift inside and out. A professional site evaluation that looks at everything from code to usability to search engine optimization and overall design is a sure-fire way to let an expert explain in detail what you are doing well, and most importantly, what you could be doing better. Often giving your own site a once over can identify if you need to redesign. If you recently had a redesign or your site is relatively new and current, keep reading — you may find something you want to implement.

1. How long as it been since your last redesign?

Industry experts recommend a redesign every 2-3 years. A refreshed look and feel is a huge part of that. Imagine if Madonna still looked the way she did in the 80s? She’d never be the success she is today; she livened up her image over time. Fast food restaurants and major soft drink brands like Burger King and Pepsi have jazzed up their logos. Bottom line is, they are still the names we know and love and are still recognizable, but these giant companies invested in changes to keep things current. So, if your e-commerce site looks like it did in 2002, 2005 or worse, 1999, you are going to definitely want to consider a brand new look and feel. You’d be amazed at how far some highly successful merchants have come since they first launched. Use the Way Back Machine (archive.org) for any store you frequent to get an idea of how a redesign every few years can progress their success.

As stated above, it’s not just about aesthetics, it’s about what’s behind the scenes, too. What is your code like? Is it gobbledegook? Is it table-based? Table-based programming is fast and easy for programmers, but it’s very old school and clunky; therefore the search engines don’t favor it. For serious programmers and e-commerce business owners, Cascading Style SheetsCSS is the recommended way to go. If you’ve been on the e-commerce block for some time now, but are starting to see your organic rankings dip, your code could be the culprit. Newer sites or redesigned sites with less-complicated code are now getting spidered better and faster.

Think of it this way– table-based programming is like being seated at the kids “table” on Thanksgiving; it is often ignored and gets slim pickings. CSS-based programming gets to sit with adults where it will be noticed, be part of the conversation and be surrounded by plentiful options. Aside from the type of code, there could also be lots of heavy stuff on your back-end bogging down load times and SEO.

2. Is Your Site Busy? Is it Hard to Navigate? Does it Instill Trust?

We all know what K-I-S-S stands for, right? While every e-commerce site needs to have its own unique branding, there are fundamentals in e-commerce we call best practices that must be followed. Landing on a cluttered homepage with mixed messages, no flow, no call to action, too much text, etc. can all cause people to click away. There’s lots of competition out there. There are pages upon pages of results for any keyword a user searches. Why should they stay at YOUR site? You have less than ten seconds to capture their attention, and if someone gets to your site and doesn’t know where to go, what to do or– worse yet- even WHAT you do, you can “kiss” that sale goodbye. Some glaring errors could be lack of a search box, a hard-to-find search box, an endless menu where shoppers have to scroll to see the navigation menu, no featured items or pricing on the homepage, too many clicks to get to item pages. Bottom line: if it looks amateur, you risk losing a customer. If your site is professional and consistent through the shell, homepage, section page, item page and checkout, you are in good shape.

Trust is the number one reason someone will leave your store. Does your site have customer service information in the header? (We hope you are not hiding from your bread and butter!) Is your checkout branded like the rest of your site? Do you have secure shopping graphics? Anyone can add something to the cart, but will they proceed by putting their credit card information into a form if they don’t trust your site, if they can’t see your return policies, etc.? Probably not.

3. Do you require
people to register to check out?

If you answered “yes” to this question, WHY? It’s easy to add items to the cart, for sure. But hitting that registration screen is a roadblock standing between you and a conversion– between you and profit. Of course there are benefits of offering account registration, however most online customers simply want to easily and swiftly check-out and make their own determination if they want to register. This issue is listed in a redesign article because this required checkout comes standard with many e-commerce platforms. If you find yourself in this situation, changing platforms may be worth considering, which inherently means a redesign.

Summing Up

The new year is a prime time to evaluate your website to determine what you are doing well and where you can improve. If there are a number of improvements to be made to make your site more trustworthy, easier to navigate, faster to load and an updated look, a redesign for 2009 may be what you need to ring in the new year… and ring up more sales.

‘Tis the Season: Seasonal Selling is a Year-Round Business

In October, it’s costumes. In November, it’s turkeys. In June, it’s grills. In December, well, you know.

Seasonal products may only be hot at only certain times of the year, but running a seasonal e-commerce business is a year-round task.

Halloween is approaching, but online costume shops have been busy since January. Tamir Nadborny of CostumeKingdom.com and StarWarsKingdom.com prepares for next year’s Halloween early.

“For us it begins in January. There really is no off-time,” he said.

“It’s year-round prep,” says Cynthia Ryan of ChildrensCostumesExpress.com. “I need to know what movie characters are hot because I don’t want to get stuck with a dud.” She usually starts ordering in January.

“It’s not rocket science, but it’s an art form,” Nadborny says. “You have to know the hot sellers and stock them. The earlier you order, the earlier you can figure out what the trends are and get more allocation. That way, when everyone wants the hot costume, you have it,” Nadborny said. “We order very early in the year because the manufacturers need lead time to project their sales so they can deliver all the goods.”

Ryan says that last year Transformers and Hannah Montana wigs were huge.

“I could have sold a thousand of them if I had them in stock.” she said.

Nadborny banked on consistent Star Wars appeal and opened a niche costume shop.

“Star Wars is consistent year after year. And this year with the release of the animated series they are introducing a lot of new characters. The manufacturers required new licenses to update the older ones around movie releases. It gives a fresh look to a brand that has been out there 30 years. We definitely stock a ton of Star Wars items.”

Ryan says when Sesame Street’s Abbey Cadabby party invitations began to sell out at her local Target she realized it would be a costume trend this year. “There are princess parties year-round,” said Ryan.

Dressing up is not just for Halloween after all. “When there are summer movie releases, there is always a rush for those costumes, like with Iron Man or the Hulk,” said Ryan.

“Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mardi Gras, Easter and then it’s Halloween again,” said Nadborny. “There are Renaissance Fairs and kids love to wear costumes year-round. Volume gets heavy in the middle of September and goes more haywire everyday.”

Robert Marshall owns ChristmasMouse.com and plans early. Way early. He does his e-commerce tweaking right after the New Year.

“Our ordering is 75% complete in January,” he said. “We like to do something with Solid Cactus to improve our site in January and February, and then in March we add new items,” he said

Seasonal Marketing

Nadborny says e-mail marketing has been effective for his costume stores.

“You constantly have to keep in touch with customers through e-mail. We do aggressive off-season promotions and restructure our website. We promote other holidays that provide a chance for business,” he said.

“I don’t spend much on advertising in the off-months,” says Ryan. “If I do something earlier, it’s usually with a focus on one costume,” she said. “I gear toward party themes during the off-times. I look in the stores to see what invitations they are pushing.”

After the Season

Halloween costumes change yearly. So what do stores do after the celebrations and costume parties pass? Have sales,
of course!

“I try not to go crazy with discounts because people still buy them for Christmas gifts. If shoppers can’t find a costume in a store after Halloween,” says Ryan, “they hit the web and they find it.”

“The end of season is one of the most aggressive in our field,” says Nadborny. “Come November, we slash probably about 60-70%. We got an order yesterday for $350 worth of clearances.”

Marshall’s retails shops are year-round Christmas stores stocking about 30,000 items—and trends in Christmas items are pretty consistent. Two popular exceptions: icicle lights and fiber optic trees.

Ryan leaves other seasonal stores with some advice:

“Try not to think of it as a seasonal item- there is always somebody out there looking for what you have!”

E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association

How can small businesses find great
rates on healthcare? On shipping? On other ancillary services? Trade associations have long been the answer to bringing those in a particular trade or industry together to advance the industry, as well as to pool resources for shared benefits among members.

In 2005, online merchants were for the
first time able to join a trade association geared toward e-commerce with the formation of the E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association, or ECMTA.

According to ECMTA.org, the organization was formed when a small group of online merchants got together to share ideas on improving their business. The group quickly acknowledged that learning how to optimize every aspect of a business was virtually impossible for a small business, so they decided to rely upon each others’ expertise. ECMTA proudly claims to be the only trade association dedicated to educating small to medium-sized online merchants on how to grow their businesses for very low monthly membership fees.

Cresta Pillsbury, Executive Vice President for Business Development for ECMTA, says since 2005, the association has evolved to include more and more benefits.

“Over the past year the organization
has formalized its Partnership program, which is like a Consumer Reports for Internet vendors,” she said. “The organization has worked hard to compile a comprehensive list of the industry leaders and negotiate special offers and pricing for our members so they get the best service and rates available.”

Special pricing is key for independent merchants. ECMTA is able to use its muscle to negotiate rates for services such as shipping, payment processing and other pertinent e-commerce necessities.

“The benefits of joining E-Commerce Merchants are numerous and we’re adding more regularly,” said Pillsbury. “I think the most popular include our merchant processing deal with Pivotal Payments and our BoldChat deal is also very popular. We recently introduced a special Control Scan offer for website security about which we are very excited. Plus, since we’ve already negotiated the best rates with our benefits providers, our members receive the most competitive pricing available.”

Aside from special pricing, ECMTA provides educational materials and events for its members. Pillsbury says that since 2005, the association has held over a dozen events in cities around the country and even Australia.

“Our events are a way for merchants to interact with the people they know ‘virtually’ in an intimate and professional setting,” she said. “Our members want to learn about improving their businesses all year-round, not just when they attend a conference. That is why we host an interactive community website that includes a very active chat board. We also send newsletters and host webinars and conference calls on a regular basis.”

So, who is a good candidate to benefit from ECMTA? According to Pillsbury, everyone in e-commerce should take a look.

“Most of our members are busy executives, many are do-it-all entrepreneurs and all of them are interested in being more efficient with their time,” she says. “E-Commerce Merchants helps them locate the best tools for optimizing their businesses. Anyone who is using the Internet to promote a business or to sell a product will benefit from joining E-Commerce Merchants.”

“Our goal is for every small business to enjoy the benefits of membership in E-Commerce Merchants. We plan to continue providing valuable services and benefits to any merchant interested in improving e-commerce,” she added.

While it’s true that there is strength in numbers, it is important to be part of the right numbers to truly benefit. If you’re an e-commerce operator, chances are you need help somewhere. The ECMTA may have the answers you seek.